Privacy Policy

Effective October 8, 2026 · Last updated October 8, 2026

1. Who this covers

This policy covers the official Scrubby bot (“Scrubby”, “we”, “us”), a Discord bot that removes tracking and sharer-identifying parameters from links. It also covers these web pages.

Your use of Discord itself is governed by Discord's Privacy Policy.

2. What Scrubby processes

Messages

In servers where it has been added, Scrubby receives messages from the channels it can see. It reads each message's text in memory to look for links, then discards it. It ignores direct messages, messages from other bots and webhooks, and links inside code formatting.

Links you share

When a link contains tracking parameters, Scrubby does the following. This also applies when you forward a message containing such a link, or edit a message to add one.

1. removes those parameters;
2. posts a copy of your message with the cleaned links in the same channel;
3. deletes your original message.

The copy starts with a line like “Shared by @you · tracking removed”. It mentions you without notifying you or anyone else. The copy is as visible as your original message was.

If Scrubby can't repost (for example, it lacks permission), it instead replies to your message with the cleaned links.

Attachments

If a cleaned message had files attached, Scrubby fetches them from Discord and uploads them again with the copy. They are held only in memory for the time this takes and are never stored by us.

Discord IDs

3. What Scrubby doesn't do

• It doesn't store message content, links or attachments. There is no database.
• It doesn't write message content to its logs.
• It doesn't read or respond to direct messages.
• It doesn't use analytics, advertising or tracking, and it doesn't build profiles of users.
• It doesn't sell, rent or share your data for marketing.
• These web pages set no cookies, run no scripts, and load nothing from third parties. Our web server doesn't log visits. Our hosting provider's network may keep standard access logs.

4. Short links and third parties

Some share links hide a sharer token in the link itself, for example vm.tiktok.com/… or reddit.com/r/…/s/…. To clean them, Scrubby's server visits the short link and follows its redirects to find the real address.

• This is only done for links on these providers: TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest (pin.it), Spotify (spotify.link), SoundCloud (on.soundcloud.com), Amazon (amzn.to, a.co) and AliExpress (a.aliexpress.com).
• Redirect links such as google.com/url?q=… are unwrapped to their destination without contacting anyone.
• The provider sees a request from our server's IP address with a generic Scrubby user agent. It does not receive your IP address, your Discord account, or the rest of your message.
• Each person is limited to a few short-link expansions per minute. If expansion fails or leads to a login page, the link is left unchanged.

Other parties involved in running Scrubby:

• Discord delivers messages to Scrubby and stores the messages it posts.
• Our hosting provider runs the bot and these pages, and may keep the operational logs described below.
• Sentry (error tracking) receives a report when something in Scrubby fails. A report contains the error type, code and technical stack trace, plus the related server, channel or message ID. It never contains message content or links.

Each of these handles data under its own privacy policy.

5. Logs and retention

Scrubby writes short operational logs so problems can be diagnosed. A log line contains a timestamp, an event (for example “repost failed”), the related server, channel or message ID, and an error code. Log lines never contain message content.

Logs are kept for no longer than 30 days and are then deleted.

Error reports sent to Sentry contain the same kind of information (no message content) and are kept for no longer than 90 days.

Everything else Scrubby uses is held in memory only and is lost when the bot restarts.

6. Why we process data

A server's administrators add Scrubby to that server. We process the limited data above to provide the feature they enabled: removing trackers from links shared there. Where the GDPR or similar laws apply, our legal basis is our and the server's legitimate interest in providing privacy-friendlier links. We keep processing to the minimum that feature needs.

7. Your choices and rights

• Delete a repost: press the 🗑️ button on it. Only the person who shared the original can do this. Server moderators can also delete it.
• Skip cleaning for one link: put the link in code formatting. Scrubby ignores links in code.
• Stop Scrubby in a server: ask a server administrator to remove the bot or restrict its channel permissions.
• Access, correction or erasure: depending on where you live, you may have these rights and others. Because Scrubby keeps no database, there is usually nothing stored about you beyond the messages it posted on Discord and short-lived logs. To ask about logs, contact us.

8. Security

We collect as little as possible, and that is our main protection. In addition:

• The bot's credentials are kept secret and are never written to logs.
• Short-link expansion is limited to the providers listed above, and blocks redirects to private networks.
• Pages fetched while expanding links are never downloaded or stored.

No system is perfectly secure, but we will fix reported issues promptly.

9. Children

Scrubby is available only through Discord and is meant for people who meet Discord's minimum age requirements. We don't knowingly collect personal data from children below that age.

10. Changes

If this policy changes, we will update the date at the top of this page. Continuing to use Scrubby after a change means you accept the updated policy.

11. Contact

For questions or requests about privacy, email [email protected].